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July 17th, 2009
clydepr
 | 09:33 pm - Vocabulary creation Methods
I have read about a few people saying that there should be a systematic method when creating a vocabulary for a conlang. Does any one have a few examples of methods of doing this? I have a few ideas, but before i start going down a path that might be fruitless...i figured i would seek the guidence of others. Im creating a language for our Dungeons and dragons adventures...and i kinda like the idea of the language sounding "themed" in such a way that it has its own strong identity. I.e. in Latin...many names seem to end in -ius or -us. Ceasarius, pontius, etc...it give the reader or listener the clear scence that this is latin...see where im going?
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July 15th, 2009
doranwen
 | 06:23 pm - Much
Short post this time. Was translating and came across the words "so much", and discovered I had a hard time really wrapping my mind around the real concept behind them, putting them into terms I could work up an equivalent meaning in my language. So I wondered what you all have done with "much" in your languages. How have you translated it, represented it in sentences? I'd love to see examples.
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maxcoremoony
 | 12:16 am
Hello! So, i've been -trying- to create my own language for awhile now. I have pronunciation and a few vocabulary words down. My language is Hrskje.
( pronunciation & Example )
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July 14th, 2009
clydepr
| 09:44 pm - Im new to the conlang field
im trying to create a dictionary (lexicon) for my language and was wondering if there is a software or easier way to do it then just using word! Maybe some type of program that you can enter words and your definitions, etc. Im new to this, but have been struggling there. Thanks guys!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/rotate.gif) artistic
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doranwen
| 05:32 pm - Creating language learning lessons
Greetings to my fellow conlangers. I've been working on a conlang I call Cerstan. Lately I haven't gotten to do a lot with it because I've been holding on any vocabulary creation or modification until the entire dictionary was transferred from a Microsoft Word doc to a Lexique Pro database. The move took awhile, and having a memory issue/crash halfway through that wiped out the entire database (and requiring restarting) didn't help matters. But that's all done with.
Now I'm ready to go on building vocabulary (I've been translating the first chapter of John from the New Testament, as well as various other poems, chants, etc., whatever captures my fancy). I'm also ready to work on a set of lessons to learn it. You see, I have a cousin about 11 or 12 who is actually interested in it. He loves his big cousin, and thinks languages are cool. And as long as he's into all that, I'd be delighted to share a bit with him for as long as the interest lasts.
But a sure way to kill that interest is to have really boring lessons with no variety and all that. So I'm looking to put together a packet of materials, everything from lessons to read and answer questions to quizzes to run through certain programs to crossword puzzles to print out and do, to even interactive games if there are any I can make work for me. (And of course, I'll be chatting with him online when possible, and sending e-mails back and forth with bits of the language in them for practice.)
My first question to this community is, what suggestions do you have for creating this? Is there a sense of a format I should start with (greetings, etc.), any lists of vocabulary/phrases to introduce in certain orders? Obviously, some of this will depend heavily on my language's characteristics (it has a large set of cases and aspects, tending to be on the synthetic side of things), but some universals must exist.
The second question I have is, what materials do you suggest I use along with a basic set of lessons? Any freeware/free open source programs you highly recommend? Keep in mind that my cousin uses Ubuntu, so anything I recommend should be simple and basic enough that it'll work through Wine (something like a Windows emulator, but not exactly). In other words, no 3D graphics or anything too flashy. But anything web-based will work great, and I do have a site I can host some miniature games and such things at, so he can go there to play them. I have a good crossword creation program, and I can render those sorts of activities as pdf files, which don't depend on a specific OS.
One note: Although I do have a special script (and a font for it), there is a Latin transcription which I use most of the time, and would use in any lessons to start with. It uses accented characters, such as á, é, ô, and ñ, among others (all are found in either French or Spanish, to the best of my knowledge). I have no issue typing these, and he probably won't either (there are ways to set it up to be easy), but if the program or game won't handle anything but the basic 26-letter alphabet, it won't work.
I welcome any and all suggestions. Currently, the one program I know that I can make work is called MultipleChoice, a tiny (and by that I mean only 144 kb!) program that lets one create quizzes and then take them, with three or four options to choose from. I'm sure that won't pose an issue to Wine, and it isn't bothered by accents. Beyond that, I haven't figured out anything else yet.
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July 13th, 2009
jfran2258
 | 06:25 pm - Relative clauses in C2
A while back someone asked how our languages handle relative clauses. I have abandoned my first conlang for a while to work on another one I call C2. ( Read more... )
Current Location: texas, usa
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/talking.gif) busy
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July 12th, 2009
cortezopossum
 | 12:04 am - Draconic additions
I mentioned in a comment to this previous Conlangs post that I was wanting to make additions to the 'Draconic' language from the AD&D game rulebooks. Here's a link to someone else's site describing the language.
I noticed some of the words are slightly 'Latin' based so for some of my new words I've taken part of the Latin word and added part of a similar Draconic word. I've also tried to take advantage of whatever patterns I've been able to find in the word list... for instance, most words for 'powerful things' seem to end in '-rix' so I've made 'rix' the word for 'power' and any additional 'powerful things' I've tried to end in '-rix' as well.
( Here are my additions so far - click for list )
Some of these I'm really surprised weren't there originally. I might change 'arsj' (torso) because it looks too much like 'arse'.
If anyone has suggestions for more 'essential words' feel free to mention them.
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July 8th, 2009
jfran2258
 | 08:43 pm - Star Wars Conlangs
So anyway I was surfing the net, and found this blog talking about extrapolating a language out of a few lines of dialog between an Ubese hunter and Jabba the hut. The exchanges are anaylized to deduce a basic phonology and grammar. (I'll use IPA, as it is easier for me to visulize than the blogger's romanization system). The blogger comes up with three known consonants t, tʃ, and j and three vowels (one of which I think is either a dipthong or an elongated vowel) a, eɪ (e:), and o.
( Read more... )
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June 27th, 2009
alishenai
 | 08:22 pm - Irregularities
Hi, it's me again. Following my last post I've spent the last few weeks adding in some irregularities. Below are some of the things that I've added:
Pronunciation:
Alishenai has several diphthongs. However sometimes the two vowels are meant to be pronounced separately -this commonly happens before certain consonants such as /l/, /n/ and /s/ and all consonant clusters such as /ch/, /sh/ and /th/. The difference in the pronounciation is considered to be irregular, however, unlike most irregular forms this does not affect the various declensions that that word can take.
Consonant change:
The following table indicates the various types of consonant change.
Hard | Soft | Aspirate | b | f | - | c | g | Ch | d | dd | - | p | b | Ph | t | d | |
This is largely evident among the grammatical moods. For example:
Indicative mood:
Past /id/, /íd/, and /ída/ etc > /idd/, /ídd/ and /ídda/ - the second and third vowels are longer if you can't see the diacritic.
Singular:
| Person | | 1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | Past | id | íd | ída | Present | od | ód | óda | Future | ud | úd | úda |
Plural:
| Person | | 1st person | 2nd person | 3rd person | Past | ed | éd | éda | Present | oid | óid | óida | Future | uid | úid | úida |
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June 26th, 2009
theunixgeek
 | 07:53 pm - IPA Text-to-Speech
Does anyone know of any text-to-speech programs or websites that "read" or generate audio from IPA? This would be especially useful for learning to read IPA more "fluently" and hearing a conlang. Thanks in advance.
P.S.: I've already tried Apple's Repeat After Me, but it apparently doesn't accept standard IPA phoneme representations.
Note: Cross-posted in Linguaphiles
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June 24th, 2009
shiro_no_wired
 | 04:26 pm - ...yes, but is it plausible?
So, I've been playing with a few of my conlangs recently. Two of them (Ćęjále and Laŕḁ́sa) are supposed to be descended from a common parent (Ancient Sutáve), with some influence from the languages that existed before the Sutáve culture displaced them. I'm trying to figure out what sound changes occurred to yield two very dissimilar languages.
So, as a prototype, I took the Ćęjále and Laŕḁ́sa noun stems for "king," wana and bukås-, and came up with this history:
wana- < wa:na:- < (wa:ŋa:-) < wə:ŋa:s- < wɻ:ŋa:sa-
bukås- < bu:kås- < ----------|
Is that at all believable?
(Pronunciation note: pretty much like IPA, but å == open-o, Ć == ʧ, ŕ is tapped, and ę == e)
x-posted to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) linguaphiles
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June 21st, 2009
dedalvs
 | 11:56 pm - Preposition Pictorial Resource
A Conlang List member is in the process of creating a series of pictures to illustrate prepositional concepts. You can view her progress here:
http://weblog.masukomi.org/2009/06/21/relative-positioning-imagery-for-linguists
She says all these images are public domain, so you can use them to help define prepositions in your conlangs, or whatever, as you see fit. Since she's also in the process of creating the images (these are just the first), she's open to suggestions for future pictures and also to modifications. If you're interested, my guess is she'll probably respond to comments posted on her blog.
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June 20th, 2009
mizenki
 | 11:51 am - Abbreviations
Since we English speakers are lazy mofos, we often shorten many a word in order to speak faster... no examples are coming to mind, but that's not the point. Do your conlangs do the same? I recently decided one of mine needed a word for bicycle (which I cleverly stole parts of from Greek and disguised it muahahaha). It ended up being tiíoscecaol, which seemed long to me.... so I decided to get English-like and shorten it to tiíosc. This meant it got a new plural too (since plurals form with vowel alternation and the occasional final consonant mutation), giving me these:
tiíoscecaol, pl. tiíoscecol /tʃi.o.ske'kɔl/ /tʃi.o.ske'kol/
tiíosc, pl. tiíúisc /tʃi'osk/ /tʃi'us:/
Anyone else do/have done this?
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June 15th, 2009
jfran2258
| 08:49 pm - Several things
The more I've been listening to how I want my conlang to sound I've found that most words are two syllable words that looks like CVCV or a few one syllable C(r, l, j, w)V. Though it feels easier to make the first set than the second. How does your conlang use consonants? English often seems to have dragged poor, unsuspecting vowels individually into rings and thrown consonants at them till we get words like "screeched". Does anyone here have a language with no codas. I know even Japanese and Toki Pona has "n." But I'm wondering if they are really necessary?
Secondly, I followed a link from one of the posters on this community to their website. I remember they had one language called "X" and another starting with a "z" that had 57 different noun cases. I don't remember the url and would like to visit the site again.
Thirdly, is there a good book or website that explains common patterns in languages and major exceptions to the rules? For example, most languages have the stops p, t, and k.
Thanks for any help you can give.
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June 12th, 2009
alishenai
| 05:10 pm - Irregularity
Throughout the past few weeks I've been thinking a lot about irregularity. At the moment Alishenai has a almost regular grammar, however, this may or may not change later. The thing is that I want Alishenai to be as naturalistic as I can make it and since all natural languages have irregularity then Alishenai should also have irregularity. However, irregulaity is prooving itself to be a pain in the neck. I can understand why many conlangers choose to forget about it alltogether. So with that being said, do you like irregulaity in conlangs?
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June 10th, 2009
fenoxielo524
 | 03:17 pm - IPA help
I'm trying to figure out what the appropriate IPA would be for a sound in my conlang. Basically, I hear it as halfway between [z] and [ʒ], and I can think of no other way to describe it than a voiced postalveolar fricative, but that's not actually what I'm going for. Basically, I'm thinking the sound made by someone trying unsuccessfully to trill an r— a postalveolar fricative, but more with the tip of the tongue rather than the meaty bit. Any ideas? Thanks.
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jimhenry
| 01:10 pm - Conlang learners project
Several of us on the CONLANG mailing list talked recently about collectively picking a conlang with few or no speakers yet, but which is fully developed enough to be speakable, and learning it together. We've created a new mailing list for this project; we'll discuss possible conlangs to learn for a while, and then decide on one. You can join the mailing list for the project at:
http://lists.conlang.org/listinfo.cgi/conlang_learners-conlang.org
The thread where Brett Williams first proposed the idea starts here.
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June 7th, 2009
secret_vice
 | 11:10 am - words
In case you have missed it, here's the latest writers block question:
No matter what language you speak, you've probably come across words or phrases in another language that sound better than their equivalents in your native tongue. What's your favorite word or phrase in a foreign language?
So since this is a conlang community, what's your favorite word or phrase in a conlang?
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June 4th, 2009
turkish_coffee
 | 11:37 pm - Making Fonts?
I was just wondering how many of you just end up working with your conlang in the Latin alphabet.
I mean, having a font is fun and all, but if no one else has the font, and you have a scanner... I just find it simpler to write & photocopy what I need printed and use the latin alphabet on my computer.
Something I almost touched on above was... what's the point of having a font if no one else has the font? You're still making an image out of it to distribute.
I guess what I'm trying to do is start a great font / no font debate. Keep it clean, please, I actually want to hear why people like to have fonts / bother to make them.
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June 2nd, 2009
moonwindstarsky
 | 12:54 pm - Angolul
VOWELS
Close --
i:\ I:\ i:\_F u: u:_O u:_O_R
Close-Mid
o: o:_R o:_F
Mid --
E:\ E:\_o E:\_F
Near-Open --
V
a:4_^
æ
CONSONANTS
Plosive --
/p_d b_d t_- d_- k ɋ g/
Nasal
/F, n`%/
Tap/Flap
/4/
Fricative --
/ p\ f v s z S S S S Z Z Z Z Z z`_X /
Approximant --
/ r\ j j/
Lateral Approximant: l
<l>
SZ
tS
dZ
ts
S
ɓ
/ohume has a silent e
h/h/ is silent at the beginning of a word, before "u" or after "i", but pharyngealizes and lengthens vowels
final partial devoicing at the end of a question
Here are some phrases:
moņdriava good day
komenthe hello
Sveiċzaninti welcome
Sveittinga May [you] at beg./end
Svezína enchanted
Apduovė Sorry
Aΐnojiett negated = forgiven/no harm done
şihnome excuse me
sihmome please
yakouem [ya-kuoi-em] formal thank you adults
yakoujo [ya-kuoi-jo] informal M
yakouio [ya-kuoi-jo] informal F
vjie prindjeta we meet again/see you later
lumenti goodbye
nojiett nojia mistakes are past
dhe quhet? What are you doing? What did you do? What have you done?
eshtu quhet? What will you do?
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May 31st, 2009
abobly
| 12:06 pm - A poem in the UFOSAT conlang.
Hello,
this is a tiny little poem written in the UFOSAT conlang.
Of course, any feedback would be much welcome.
Thanks everybody.
Abo Bly
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May 30th, 2009
boaal
| 11:32 am - Alphabets/English/Translation
I wasn't really sure what to title this, but I was thinking yesterday that my first con-lang so far, has to be translated into english characters otherwise it is impossible to read without actually knowing the language. I realised that there isn't any real structure for what each letter is the equivalent of, for example.
English 'a' = con lang 'y'
English T - con lang 'e'
Etc
I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, after all my language only has 23 characters to the English 26, and if I make another language it may have more than the english language. I have the vowels and consonants set out and a structure for forming the words, and I'm happy with it, but sometimes I come across a letter and wonder if, because I've used some such a letter for it before, that I should use it again, which then seems to tie it down in a very awkward way because it's not really supposed to correspond to English.
Does anybody else have any thoughts, ideas, etc on this?
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May 26th, 2009
secret_vice
| 12:52 pm - concultures and conlangs
What are some good examples of a language that reflects the culture of the people who speak the language? any examples would be great, but I would prefer some examples of how this works in natural languages. Thanks in advance.
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May 20th, 2009
turkish_coffee
| 06:09 pm - Script
I don't know how much any of you are into script building, but I've made a new one for my latest conlang (the still unnamed one with a special focus on time and aspect). I was doodling, trying to figure out how I want to do my verbs for it (or even if I want to carry out with my verbs as planned, but that is another post) and I drew a circle. Well thinking about time and aspect got me to think two things.
- That's actually a pretty even circle. Four years of HS art classes paid off afterall!
- You know, that's sort of like a clock...
So, from this point I was thinking, what if the letters were positions on a clock? which I realized wouldn't work all that well since it has 20 consonants and five vowels. So, the vowels are are based on the five after, twenty-five after, twenty-five of and five of positions, which derive from numbers and correspond to those points on a clock.
While the "Old Script" is phonetic, it is cumbersome and based on relative positions. It's also been around since before this language (this delves into the history of my conculture somwehat, note that I am reverse-engineering parts of this).
The Script (Warning! my scanner like to enlarge things to double the size; Paired with my laziness, this leads to large images around 600KB.)
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avis_noctis
 | 03:40 am - Conlang site
Hello.
I recently created a website for all of my conlangs and concultures. It is fleshed out to a reasonable degree, but there is a lot to be added. I'll also be adding more to the existing sections and pages.
The lack of pictures has been mentioned before, and I do intend to have some, but I'm currently without a scanner, and I don't know many graphic artists online, so the image aspect will have to wait for now.
I'm actively seeking comments/suggestions on all aspects of the site and its content, especially the technical elements of the linguistics, since I'm a perfectionist when it comes to that.
Aeniith.com
Any suggestions/criticism/questions/comments, etc. are appreciated.
Thanks.
(x-posted to worldmaking and worldbuilding)
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/upsidedown.gif) curious
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May 19th, 2009
alphistia
 | 09:48 pm - curiosity
I'm curious whether any conlangers on this lj have taken the time (and considerable effort) to learn a conlang that isn't your own...not counting international auxiliary languages of great fame like Esperanto or Ido. I'm very interested in culture-building and wondering if other conlangs have developed a following/community/culture. Ovat danken en vanderse hoiven.
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May 17th, 2009
turkish_coffee
| 01:17 pm - Noun Inflection - When is it enough?
Time and aspect. I'm working on a conlang for a conculture where life pretty much revolves around time. As such, Tense and Aspect are the two most important ideas in the language. If the Germans can tack Ge- onto nouns to represent the past tense (Geburtstag) then why not add aspect in there too?
Although my question is sort-of unrelated to that.
At what point do “endings” for noun inflection become cumbersome? I was thinking about having it show Tense, Aspect and Number. That would mean 3 Tenses * 2 Aspects * 5 Numbers means 30. If I have three genders, that's 90 endings...
I may cut out the “Collective” plural, and I suppose I don't need a distinction between “many” and “few” (or perhaps I could tack distinction there with my articles, which are as of now intended to show case). That would make it 3 * 2 * 3 * 3 = 54.
If I cut one gender, it then becomes 3 * 2 * 3 * 2 = 36.
I think once you're past 20 forms, it doesn't make much of a difference exactly how many there are. Besides that, I can't imagine how any natural language would allow itself to have that many forms (unless all the gendered forms are only slightly different to make them easier to say, then it's only 18 unique forms which is below my magic number).
Planned...
Tenses: Past, Present and Future
Aspects: Perfect and Imperfect
Numbers: Singular, Pactual (few), Plural (many), Distributive Plural (many independent insistences) and Collective
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May 16th, 2009
secret_vice
| 02:57 pm - Articles
Would it be unusual to have a article that can be used as both a definate and a indefinate article? At the moment my present conlang has both a singular and a plural article. For example se can be used in sentences such as: the boy threw the ball to the dog, and si can be used in sentences such as: the boys each took turns to throw the ball to the dog.
Anyway, since English has two articles: a definate article (the) and a indefinate article (a, an), I thought it would be better simply to have the singular articles se and tas function as both a definate and a indefinate article. For example, the article "the" can be used in either singular or plural sentences, whilst the article "a" or "an" can only be used in singular sentences such as: the dog chased a cat, or the boy picked an apple from the tree. Therefore whilst English relies on seperate articles, instead my conlang will rely on the context to differ between deffinate/ indefinate articles. If that makes any sense, of course. Lol Is there any natural languages that do this?
Also I have another question. Would it make sense to have a article that doesn't have different forms for either number or gender whilst the other articles do? For example, in my conlang je may be used to translate words such as "some" ect, which don't fall into either singular or plural categories.
Well I've done my best to explain my little dilemma. The following table includes all the articles in my present conlang, and yes, the spelling differences are deliberate. Like many natural languages, and also many conlangs, the plurals are formed through a process referred to as vowel mutation. The dashes (-) simply illustrate that 1) plural indefinate articles don't exist; and 2) that the je can can be used for either number or gender -to some extent.
| Singular | | Plural | | | Masculine | Feminine | Masculine | Feminine | Definate | Se (the) | Tas (the) | Si (the) | Tais (the) | Indefinate | Se (a) | Tas (a) | - | - | Partitive | Je | - | - | - |
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May 12th, 2009
secret_vice
| 11:40 pm - new community
Hi I've just created a new community about world building. The community can be found here:
http://community.livejournal.com/alt_worlds/
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May 10th, 2009
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